The Body Lies

Excerpted from The Body Lies


The beck is frozen into silence. Snow falls. It muffles the roads, bundles up the houses, deepens the meadows, turns the river black by contrast. It settles along the grey-green twigs and branches of the beech wood, sifts like sugar to the hard earth below—and dusts the young woman curled there, her skin blue-white, dark hair tumbled over her face. She doesn’t say a word; she doesn’t even shiver now. Her breath comes thinly.

A deer, scraping at the snow for roots, stops, and snuffs the air, and scents her, and turns to move silently from the place.

Above the canopy, the sky is clear, the moon stands full. An owl scuds across the meadow, drops to kill a vole. In the shadow of the beech tree, there is stillness, not a breath. The body lies.

*

It was on the busy, dirty Anerley Road in South London that the man hit me. It was the nineteenth of September, it was around quarter past seven in the evening, and I was walking downhill from the train station to our flat after a shift at the bookshop. The weather had been fine in the morning when I set out for work, but now it was raining, and I wasn’t dressed for it.
I had just crossed the railway bridge when I noticed someone running up the hill towards me. He was wearing black trackies and a blue anorak; he had the hood up, toggle pulled tight against the rain, and was running easily, a steady lope. He said something as he went by. I didn’t quite catch it.

If I had been at a distance, watching me, rather than being stuck inside my own head, I would have seen the man slow down, come to a halt, and turn, and stare. Then I would have seen him run back down the hill towards me. I’d have seen something like that, anyway.

But as it was, I just saw the streaks of streetlamp on the pave­ment, and felt the hush of cars passing in the rain, and felt the cold damp seeping through my jacket; my hands, in my pockets, rested against the bulge of my belly. I was thinking that my back ached, and that I really needed new shoes and that tomorrow, on my day off, I’d finally screw up courage to phone Mum; if I left it any later it’d be a whole heap of new offence for her to take. I became aware of the sound of running footsteps behind me, and I moved aside, towards the dark trees, to let what I thought was another runner past.

But it was the same guy. He ducked in front of me, smiling. He spoke again, and this time I caught what he was saying. He was telling me what he’d like to do to me.

I went to dodge past him, but he sidestepped into my path. I backed away, but he came with me; every move was anticipated. And all the time he was talking, his breath on my face. The smell of him. He forced me further back, between the dark trees, up against the wire fence. Then his body was on mine; I could feel his hard-on pushing at my belly. I shoved at him, struggled, but was hamstrung by strangeness: I couldn’t process. I thought, I thought, This is really happening. I thought, I should be handling this better.

“Get off me.” I pushed at him.

A hand mauled at my breast.

“Fuck’s sake, get off me.”

And then a hand clamped over my mouth. He was telling me what he was going to do to my body, and I thought, There is noth­ing I can do to stop this. Cars streamed past behind him in the wet; someone walked by on the far side of the street, umbrella tilted in our direction. I was pinned. I couldn’t shout. I could hardly breathe. I twisted my head aside, desperate for breath. His hand slipped, and I got my teeth around it. I bit.

He swore and jerked away. His weight was off me. He looked at me, shaking out his hand. I staggered to go around him, but he caught me by the shoulder and swung me back. I saw it coming; I just stood there. His fist slammed into my jaw. My head whipped back. My teeth clashed together. I fell back into the branches, the wire fence sinking beneath me.

So this is what the world is like. I had no idea.

I have a clear image of him standing there, over me, in the light of the streetlamp and in the rain, his blue hood still pulled tight like some kind of hazard gear, like handling me was some­how contaminating but necessary; there was water beading on his face, and he was smiling like he was smiling for a photograph. And he was, I suppose. He must have known it would be indel­ible, that image; that I would be stuck with it forever. That I’d remember him forever, and I’d always be afraid.

Because then he just turned and loped away. I watched till he was over the cusp of the hill, to be certain he had gone.

My jaw hurt and when I reached up to touch it there was blood. I straightened out my jacket, smoothed it over my belly. I felt like I’d done something stupid. I made my way back towards the flat.

Two huge men were sitting on the front steps of our build­ing, eating fried chicken under the shelter of the doorway. They glanced up at me, then shunted aside to let me pass.

*

I told Mark what had happened and he hugged me.

“Oh my God,” he said.

He let me go, held me at arm’s length and looked long at me. He went pink. “Fuck. Fuck fuck fuck fuck fuck.”

I nodded, eyes full.

“What kind of an asshole would do a thing like that?”

I didn’t have an answer. He touched my belly, looking me in the eyes.

“I don’t think there’s anything wrong,” I said. “He only hit me in the face.”

I went to the bathroom and washed my face and peered down my top at the red marks on my breast. I stuck the split on my chin together with Steri-Strips. Mark brought in a cup of tea and winced again at the sight of my chin.

“I mean, Jesus.” And he went silent and shook his head. “I’m going to call the police,” he said.

I blew a breath, still staring at the mirror.

He closed the bathroom door; I could hear him in the sitting room, phoning the local station.

Mark held my hand. We sat side by side on the sofa. I told the officers what had happened and it felt like we were playing parts, like Mark and I were story of the week in some TV drama; that the police were the regular actors who were there for whole careers.

The officers said they’d be in touch, and then they went away. Mark fetched me a blanket and lifted my feet up onto the sofa and brought me tea and toast, and then he rang our midwife. She called by late that evening, at the end of her rounds. She took a squint at my Steri-Strips and said I’d done a decent job of it. Then she had me lie down and bare my belly and the three of us listened to the baby’s squelch and squish heartbeat on her little monitor. She smiled at me over my bulge and I smiled unevenly back at her.

“What about you, though, hon?” she asked. “How are you?”

“So long as the baby’s okay,” I said, “I’m okay.”

She said, “You know, women say that all the time. But I don’t always believe them.”

*

I didn’t get around to calling Mum. Not that day, nor the next. Good news is one thing to spread around; bad news, though, I screw the lid down tight and nothing gets out.

Mark was reluctant to go to work, but I said not to worry, I’d be fine. I’d have to be fine eventually and I might as well start now. He said he’d skip out directly after school, get someone else to cover Homework Club; he’d be home by five. It was my day off, which struck me as a bit of a waste, but at least I didn’t have to call Sinead and explain why I wasn’t coming in.

I tried to fill the time. I tried to write but I couldn’t. I tried to read but I couldn’t. I wanted an apple, but there were no apples in the flat, so I went out to buy some. I got as far as the front door of the building. Someone skimmed past on a bike; cars hurtled by; a loud tangle of lads came jostling down the pavement. I closed the door and went back up the stairs to our flat and locked the door. I texted Mark.

Mark came home just after five with a bag of Granny Smiths. He also brought a stack of work with him. He said he’d had to tell Amy what had happened; he hoped I didn’t mind. He couldn’t dump Homework Club on her without some kind of explanation. She sent her love, and hoped I was feeling better soon.

“That’s nice,” I said. But I didn’t like that Amy knew.

It hurt to eat apples: it made the cut on my chin weep.

Over the coming days, the bruise faded, the cut healed, and I managed to leave the flat. I made it into work. I started getting the bus to and from the station, rather than walk.

I was okay, I thought. I was getting over it. It could have been so much worse.

I received a quiet kind letter from Victim Support. They offered emotional and practical help; all I had to do was make myself an appointment. I left the letter on the kitchen counter with the reminder for the gas bill, and the council tax statement, and the club card vouchers.

I met up with Dad. He bought me lunch at Brown & Green. I didn’t have to tell him about the baby; I just waddled in and his eyes lit on my belly and then up to meet mine, and then just, whumpf, they filled up. He was on his feet and pushing past the table and hugged me. I’d waited till the bruise had faded; he didn’t notice the scar. It’s on the underside of my chin and you’d have to know it was there to see it. We talked and talked and he promised that he would talk to Mum too; he was sure that she’d come around. Two days later there was a card in the post—Congratulations!, a picture of a big-eyed teddy bear in dungarees holding a bunch of balloons—and a cheque for a hundred pounds. Buy yourself some­thing nice, he wrote in the card; he’d signed it from Mum and Dad. So she hadn’t come around after all. I bought groceries.

I made an appointment with the dentist: while I was preg­nant treatment was free. I told her I’d chipped my tooth falling off my bike. She wanted to know what I was doing, riding a bike in London, in my condition? Or indeed at all, ever? And more importantly did I carry an organ donor card? Because anything else was a waste of good fresh kidneys. She peered into my mouth and decided there wasn’t any point trying to repair the tooth. I’d stop noticing it, she said, in time.

*

I said to Mark one evening, “I wonder what is going on in some­one’s life, that they feel the need to do a thing like that.”

He looked up from his book. “Is this about that guy?”

“I mean, maybe if I hadn’t bitten him. Violence begets vio­lence, doesn’t it. Maybe he wouldn’t have punched me.”

“Don’t do that, don’t blame yourself. Jesus.”

“I’m just trying to understand.”

He hesitated, then he said, “You need to let it go, love.”

I chewed my lip.

“It’s not doing you any good, brooding on it like this.” He leaned over to stroke my arm. “You have to let it go. You can’t let it change your life.”

The following day, I saw Blue Anorak Man in the street. He shot past on a bike while I was waiting for the bus. I think it was him. I managed to get on board and sit down. I couldn’t stop shaking. The bus pulled away. We ground our way uphill, in the opposite direction, and I realised that whilst he was fixed like a photograph in my mind, he might not even recognise me.

A few weeks after that, the bus didn’t come, and didn’t come and I had to walk. Heading downhill towards Thicket Road, some­one came running up behind me. I froze, waiting for the crash of him back into me. But nothing happened. A woman ran past in black-and-pink leggings and pink vest top. She jogged on down the street, bouncing ponytail, swinging elbows. I felt a rush of love for her, for her just running by without a backwards glance. But I was still shaking when I got back to the flat.

And then the baby was born. My little boy. Samuel. Sammy. Sam. He was squashed and purple and skinny and his two-weeks-overdue arrival nearly did for both of us. After a shaky start, he just got on with the business of being a baby and became more beautiful and funny every day.